


Thunder and Lightening

by Raddtaire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:09:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raddtaire/pseuds/Raddtaire
Summary: That had been the plan: two hours alone with Jon all in the name of her father’s birthday. But the plan had abruptly changed to an unknown amount of time alone with Jon in her apartment, probably overnight if the storm got worse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how I got here. I just woke up in front of my laptop with a million tabs of GoT fic and the rough draft of this written, so...here it is.

“The radar doesn’t show it letting up at all.”

“For how long?”

“Forever?” Jon squinted down at the weather app on his phone. “It’s just a big wall of red over most of the state.” 

“It can’t keep up this bad all night, can it?” 

Sansa turned from the window when Jon didn’t answer. The rain was pelting against the glass so hard she could barely see anything outside.

“Jon?” Sansa prompted.

“Huh?”

“I said, it can’t keep up this bad all night, don’t you think?”

By way of an answer, Jon handed her his phone. He’d expanded the radar from the national weather service to show most of the state, but Sansa could still see their location from a small blue pin caught in the midst of a multi-colored swirl. 

“Oh.” Sansa said after a long pause

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve never actually seen purple on the radar.” Sansa said absently. “How bad do you think that gets?”

“We’ll find out in another hour. Maybe less.”

Sansa gave his phone back and the two looked out the window for a moment more. The rain was so torrential she could only dimly see the garage of her apartment building across the parking lot. 

“Sansa, I don’t really feel comfortable driving in this.” Jon said cautiously. He seemed actually worried that she would demand they start the drive home, and Sansa had to laugh just a little. 

“Jon, there’s no way we’re driving home, not in this. I wouldn’t leave my apartment for food much less get on the highway. I’ll call my dad and tell him we’ll have to leave tomorrow or…whenever the storm calms down.”

The plan had been simple. Ned Stark was turning fifty and had said that the only thing he wanted for his birthday was to have all of his family together. All of the Stark children except for Rickon and Bran had scattered over the country: Robb with a job and Sansa and Arya in college. Catelyn had scheduled all of them to come home for a weekend of family celebrating; she had even shown an uncharacteristically sensitive side to Jon and called him personally to insist he come home since Ned had always considered him one of his sons anyway. Jon had admitted to Sansa that he’d burst into tears as soon as he had hung up. 

The plan had been that Jon would pick up Sansa since she was on his way anyway. It was a four-hour drive for Jon from his apartment to the Stark’s house, and Sansa’s university was halfway through, so they would have been confined to close quarters for barely two hours if there wasn’t traffic. It would have been easy. 

It wasn’t that being alone with Jon was uncomfortable for her; it was just uncomfortable and too comfortable all at once. Margaery had been off-put by Jon the first time she’d met him. “He’s so quiet and serious all the time.” She had said. “It’s sexy but I don’t know what to say to him!” Jon had always been quiet, and he came off as aloof more often than not, but for all they had fought as children and teenagers, Sansa liked his company more and more as they got older. In groups he was quiet, but one on one he would relax and talk about hockey or his job at the courthouse. He listened when Sansa spoke and asked her about her senior thesis, and Sansa found it frighteningly easy to open up to him, to ask him questions and know he would be honest. Which was precisely the problem. Sansa liked spending time with Jon, felt like herself around him, and found herself able to be alarmingly candid with him. It made it difficult when he asked her about her love life not to answer, I think I’m a little gone on you, so, no, I haven’t been seeing anyone. It didn’t hurt that Jon had kept playing hockey through college and then had joined a gym after graduation, or that he seemed to forget more often than not to shave. 

That had been the plan: two hours alone with Jon all in the name of her father’s birthday. But the plan had abruptly changed to an unknown amount of time alone with Jon in her apartment, probably overnight if the storm got worse. 

As it turned out, Sansa didn’t have to explain the weather to her parents; her mother answered the phone by telling her under no circumstances to start driving, the rain was too bad and she didn’t want them on the road under any circumstances. The little dinner they had planned for her father wasn’t until the next day anyway, so they could still technically be on time if they left in the morning. 

“How’s your mom?” Jon asked when she had hung up. 

“Glad we’re not on the road. Asked whether I had stocked up on canned goods. Speaking of which, I guess we won’t be leaving for awhile?”

As if compelled to answer first, a piece of hail pinged off the window, followed by another and another, until the crash of pellets on the roof was deafening. 

“Well,” Sansa sighed “I’ve got some leftovers if you want dinner.”


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Sansa said slowly, “therefore means what I think it means, like, ‘because of this, therefore that,’ but…therefor means….just…‘for that thing’?” 

“Let’s say that I’m notifying someone in a letter that I’m paying them for something,” Jon ran a hand through his hair absently. Robb said that Jon was only doing so well in law school because he kept all the facts in his hair when his brain couldn’t take any more. “I could write, ‘I request your services regarding this matter and am enclosing payment therefor.’”

“Is it normal that my natural response to this is anger?” 

“Yes, which is why once you get hired by The Washington Post you need to do a scathing piece of investigative journalism about the outdated jargon used in America’s legal system and how detrimental it is to law students’ mental health.” 

They had settled into Sansa’s couch and picked through the leftover Chinese food Sansa and Margaery had ordered the night before. Her roommate had left on a family camping trip further south and out of the rain well before the storm had rolled in. There was a baking show playing on the small television, the Communal Stark Netflix Account rolling through the episodes, but the volume was turned down and neither of them was paying much attention. 

“Is your plan still to spend time as a public defender before joining Robb’s ticket on his presidential campaign?” Robb and Jon had had a bonfire the night of their college graduation and hashed out, not entirely soberly, all the details of their political careers, and their run for President and Vice President had become the kind of partially genuine joke that stuck around the family. 

“If Robb still wants to. Or I could attach myself to your campaign.” 

“I’m getting a journalism degree.” Sansa protested.

“And Jed Bartlet was an economics professor!” 

“Jed Bartlet wasn’t real.” 

It was in fuzzy, random moments in his carrel at the library past midnight, stomach aching from too much coffee and eyes blurring and when he just wanted to call someone and talk about the absurd footnotes in his case law textbooks, that Jon realized how much he missed Sansa. Then when they were together like this, a rare moment alone and in their easy rhythm, Jon was trapped between moving and freezing; as he found himself relaxing and relishing her company and realizing afresh how much he’d missed it, he’d snap himself out of the comfort for fear his crush had been showing the whole time. 

“I don’t suppose you have an extra razor somewhere I can borrow before tomorrow.” He asked, changing the subject as she opened a sleeve of biscuits they had found in the pantry. 

“I think so, it’s probably pink though. Why do you want to shave?” It might have been Jon’s imagination, but she looked almost disappointed. 

“Your mother won’t be pleased with this.” Jon vaguely gestured to the bottom of his face.

“She’ll get over it.” Sansa reached over and teasingly scratched under his jaw the way she did to the Stark family dogs. “I think it looks nice, you look very rugged and traditionally masculine.” 

“Are you saying you think I’m handsome, Sansa Stark?” 

Sansa rolled her eyes at him; it was the reaction he had been going for, to be fair. “I’m sure the girls like it, is all I’m saying.”

“What girls?” Jon pretended to bite at her hand to make her laugh when it strayed up to his cheek. “There haven’t been any girls, I’m in law school.” 

“I wasn’t aware the Law required all of its grad students to become monks.” 

“It’s just that I don’t have time for a relationship right now.” It wasn’t not-true. 

“You know, that’s what I said to the last guy I was seeing.” Sansa countered. “Spoiler: I did have time, I just didn’t like him that much.”

“Okay,” Jon conceded “I…I haven’t found the right girl yet.” Also not not-true, but Jon paused for a moment too long, just long enough for Sansa to notice. 

“Fine.” He said finally. “There have been some girls.”

He was in law school, he was busy, he hadn’t really connected with any of the friends of friends he’d been set up on dates with, and none of the girls had been Sansa. Sansa who might as well have been his sister, and who he’d been so hopeless over for years. He’d been on two blind dates, one of which had led nothing, and the other to hooking up once and then agreeing to not see each other for a second date. In retrospect, he hadn’t even been trying; he only wanted Sansa. 

“Oh?” Sansa smirked at him and poked him in the ribs. “What was that about being in law school?” 

“Yeah, okay, fine, I’ve broken my vows of celibacy a few times.” 

“Will you get thrown out for that?” She teased.

“Only if it prevents me from passing the Bar. Why is that baker crying?” Jon desperately wanted to change the subject, and, conveniently, a baker on the television screen was indeed sobbing into his hands at his kitchen station.

“Oh,” Sansa said after a moment “he didn’t proof the dough enough, so it didn’t rise and now he’s going to lose the challenge. Yeast gets someone every time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Overwhelming thanks to all the kudos and kind comments. I was nervous about posting this fic, but everyone has been so nice and supportive, thank you!! 
> 
> Also, they are indeed watching the Great British Bake Off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night continues and Jon misspeaks.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” Jon asked. They had turned off the television and the storm was still raging outside. Though the hail had stopped, the rain had intensified and their conversation had flowed through the interruptions of deafening thunder. 

Sansa shook her head. “My Aunt Lysa said to me my first year not to date anyone in college because I’d be more mature than all the boys and I should just wait until after graduation when they had all caught up to me. I’d just be wasting my time otherwise.” 

“That sounds like Lysa.” Jon said with a wry smile. “She’s right though.” 

“I thought she was just, you know, being Aunt Lysa, she’s always been so opinionated and just a little crazy, but I’m graduating in the spring and I think she might have been right.”

“Has it been that bad?” 

“No, just…kind of disappointing, I guess.”

“That might be worse.” 

“My thoughts exactly.”

Sansa thought about going into detail, the awkward weekend fling with Margaery’s brother before he’d come out, the boyfriends who only lasted a matter of months, and the disastrous affair with Petyr Baelish, an adjunct professor who was thrown out of the university for reasons and affairs, it turned out, not at all involving his relationship with one of his students. Sansa decided it was for another time; she wanted to talk about something else with Jon; trapped in her apartment by a storm was as good a time as any. 

“Jon.” She meant to continue or to start a new sentence, but his name trailed off into its own sentence. Jon was always willing to let her find the words at her own pace, and he did now. He turned toward her on her couch to give her his attention, but said nothing. 

“I never thanked you…for my birthday.” She said finally.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jon said quickly. “I’m just glad you like the scarf.”

“Jon.”

“It took me awhile to pick out, you know, I’m not good with the clothes and…stuff. I was proud of myself though, I think the green brings out your eyes.”

“You know what I meant: not this year, my eighteenth birthday.”

“Oh,” Jon laughed but he looked down at his hands as he said it. “you mean when I punched your boyfriend in the face and ruined your birthday party?” Sansa had known that he was still sorry about it, though it was years ago, but seeing his back slouched into the back of her couch and his head dipped, Sansa realized how much his body seemed to reflect more than his voice how bad he still felt about it. 

“Jeyne and I were laughing about it within a few months.” She reassured him. “Robb still jokes that he owes you a life debt for that. There’s no reason for you to beat yourself up about it. Besides, I’m thanking you now.” 

Outside the storm raged on, howling wind and rain and thunder. Inside it was warm and still and Jon was close and looking at her again. Even though they had grown so much closer through college, they had never talked about it just the two of them. 

“Why? If I can ask.” Jon’s voice was quiet. The best answer, or at least the simplest answer, was probably the most honest answer. 

“Robb’s always been a paranoid older brother, or… or it was easy to see him like that, and so I brushed off everything he said about Joffrey. You’ve always been the more levelheaded one. I’d never seen you actually lose your temper, and when you did…I couldn’t brush it off like I did with Robb. I couldn’t look at Joffrey the same way again.”

“Well, I’d hoped you couldn’t look at him the same way because he’d been such an ass, but if you frame it like that I suppose I can take all the credit.” There was an edge of laughter in his voice, just enough for his sincerity to be tempered with their easy teasing. It made Sansa smile, but there was something there that made her not drop the matter just yet, something in how Jon’s face had gone so quickly to embarrassment and remorse when she had brought it up. 

“Jon, why have you felt so bad about it for so long?” She asked gently. Jon shrugged and made a noise as if to say all at once that he didn’t know why and it didn’t matter anyway. Sansa had learned that sometimes, particularly with Jon, silence was as good as prying for answers; if she just gave him the space to speak, he’d eventually find the words he wanted. 

“I…” he began slowly. He opened his mouth once or twice without saying anything, and Sansa could see him change his mind and start again in his head “At first, I was honestly just worried you’d hold it against me and hate me, you were crying a lot at the time. Then you seemed to forgive me but I was still doubting myself and wondering if I hadn’t really done it because I was jealous and overprotective rather than, you know, acting in your best interest. I want to be there to help, with anything or anyone, but I don’t want to fight battles for you if you need to fight them yourself. If that makes sense or anything…” 

He shrugged as he finished, as if to disperse what he said like ripples in a pond, but they rolled over Sansa over and over again as she slowly began to piece words together. Most of the boys she’d met thus far had been more preoccupied with what felt like performing for her; it was sweet and genuine and one of the loveliest things from maybe anyone ever that Jon was just as concerned with not getting in her way as he was with being there for her. But…but something tugged at her, demanded her attention, maybe a slip, maybe nothing, maybe something. 

“You worried,” she said slowly, repeating his words “because you thought you might have done it because you were jealous?” 

“No,” Jon’s spoke softly but swiftly, maybe too swiftly “because I felt overprotective.” 

“You said jealous.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Sansa’s mind had already latched onto it and pulling at it like a loose thread.

“No-”

“You said you felt overprotective and jealous.” 

Jon swallowed, opened his mouth, said nothing, and laughed uneasily. He might have been turning pale and red at the same time. “Jon.” He stared at the wall, at the floor, at the ceiling. 

“Jon, do you remember that night?”

“I mean…” Jon trailed off and swallowed. His entire body was vibrating and yet eerily still. “Yes. Yes, of course, I remember.”

“Do you remember the whole thing?” 

From looking anywhere but at her, his head turned to her so quickly it might have snapped. “Do you?” 

“Of course.”

“I wasn’t sure…you were drinking.”

“So were you. I thought maybe when we…” Sansa’s mind reeled. If Jon was a bottle of adrenaline about to explode, her mind was running so fast as to catch fire. “I thought it might have been just because you were drinking-”

“We were both drinking.”

“But if you were jealous, then-”

“Sansa, I…I misspoke, okay?” 

“I don’t think you did. Jon, why were you jealous?” 

“I said the wrong thing, it happens all the time.”

“Not with you. Jon, tell me.”

He laughed, a strangled, humorless noise, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sansa,” he spoke more into his hand than to her, “you know, you have to know by now.”

“I want you to tell me.” Her pulse hammered in her ears. Jon was blushing, his face pink and red and a blur of half-masked emotion, and it would have been adorable if Sansa hadn’t felt, she thought, the same way, so precarious and so close to the edge. The rain hammered outside, a wave of thunder washing over the building, and Sansa dimly sensed that both their voices were louder than strictly necessary

Jon turned toward her abruptly; his thousand-mile stare at the wall, anywhere but at her was shattered. He was closer than he had been before, how and when they closed the distance on the couch Sansa couldn’t remember, but she could feel something animal inside her responding to the distance, the fight, the flight, the hunt, the chase. His voice was raw and hoarse and sounded how Sansa felt. 

“Why are you doing this to me? Why is this so important to you?” 

“What are you afraid of?” The words burst out of her, angry and scared and drawn tight enough to break. “What have you got to lose?” 

Thunder and lightening crashed outside, and then, quietly and instantly, the power went out.


	4. Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter! Everything that happened at Sansa's eighteenth birthday to make so many feelings happen in the last chapter. Thank you so much for all the support and enthusiasm, I'm heart-eyesing all of you.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, I am.”

“Don’t be.”

From downstairs the doorbell rang and someone ran to answer, bare feet slapping on the hardwood. There were muffled voices and the sound of the door closing, and then the smell of pizza wafted up the stairs into the hallway. Neither Robb nor Jon moved from where they sat on the floor. 

“I ruined Sansa’s birthday.” Jon said

“Joffrey ruined Sansa’s birthday. Don’t be sorry. That’s an order.” Robb said.

“You’re not captain of the hockey team here.”

“To hell I’m not.”

Sansa’s crying had faded and finally stopped. Through the bathroom door, they could hear running water. Robb let out a long breath and rubbed his hands over his face. Jon couldn’t bring his eyes up from the ground. 

“Thank you.” Robb said quietly. 

“For ruining your sister’s birthday?”

“Stop it, Jon.” Robb turned to look at him. “You saw Sansa when she came out of her room. If one of us hadn’t punched him I would have beaten myself up all night for letting him get away with it. No one makes my sister cry.” Robb grasped his shoulder and shook him gently they way he always did before hockey practice. “So Sansa might be mad at you, but not me. I owe you one if anything.”

The sound of water stopped suddenly and both of them scrambled to stand up before the bathroom door opened. Sansa had taken her make up off, and her hair still held onto the waves of the braid she had plaited it into earlier. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her eyes were still red but her voice was firm and calm. “I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t really want to talk to either of you, so just…I’m going to the kitchen to eat something, and then I’m going to bed.”

“Jeyne ordered pizza.” Jon said quietly “I think it just got here.” 

Sansa nodded once and walked past them without another glance. Jon felt Robb’s hand heavy on his shoulder again, and wondered that it was possible for his heart to sink even lower in his stomach.

“You’re her brother.” Jon muttered. “She has to come around for you eventually. I don’t have that safety net.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re practically another brother to her.”

Rob’s words echoed in his head as he helped pick up cups and beer cans in the living room, you’re practically another brother to her. He had no doubt it was meant to make him feel better, but it would have worked better if Jon had thought of Sansa as a sister, and he hadn’t for some time. 

He had at one point when they were children. Then when they had entered puberty a few years apart she had become a girl, nebulous, other, an equally intriguing and infuriating thing, moody and teasing, sometimes cruel, sometimes kind. She’d been gangly and silent toward him when he and Robb had graduated, but things had changed in the two years he’d been away at college. She was different. In the way she stood and the way she looked at him. When he’d arrived, she had smiled at him, given him hug with one arm, the other holding a messily wrapped box from Arya, and asked him about his classes. 

Maybe it was just the absence and not seeing her in two years had softened her to him. Maybe he had changed. He’d finally surpassed her in height with his last growth spurt in college, and his hockey scholarship had kept him in shape. His hair was still long, but he’d been keeping up with it and growing into it instead of using it as a shield like he had in high school. He’d heard one of her friends, Mya maybe, whisper something to Sansa about her brother’s hot friend, but he hadn’t heard Sansa’s answer. 

If everything had gone to plan that night, the girls would have stayed up half the night talking, watching movies, and drinking the cheap cider Robb had delivered as a birthday present. Technically Robb was in charge since Ned and Catelyn had gone out of town; Ned had charged the boys with keeping order and had begrudgingly allowed alcohol after the persuasion of, as no one would have guessed, Catelyn. 

“I don’t want her starting college not knowing what effect alcohol has on her and finding out at some house party full of strangers. This way she’s in a safe environment with supervision. The boys will keep an eye out, and it will only be her and her girl friends.”

It was supposed to have only been her girl friends. Jon and Robb had been drinking the cheap beer they had brought for themselves and playing video games in the basement when they heard a laugh belt out from above them, a boy’s laugh. Sansa had begged them when they opened to living room door and found Joffrey and three of his friends amongst the cluster of girls: he was her boyfriend, he wasn’t there to start trouble, they were being responsible, how could he be such an awful brother, and she wasn’t a child, she was eighteen. To Sansa, Robb had yielded, but back in the basement he set a timer on his phone. 

“I don’t like him.” Jon had said. 

“I fucking hate him.” Robb answered. “So, one of us is going to walk by that room every twenty minutes.” 

And so they took turns walking slowly by the door to the living room and glancing in. On Jon’s third rotation he walked by the door and at the foot of the basement stairs, turned around, and walked back. 

“Where’s Sansa?” 

“She went to the bathroom.” One of the girls said too casually.

“Then where’s Joffrey?” 

They had rehearsed an answer for Sansa but not her boyfriend, that much was clear from the girl’s sudden stammer and wide eyes. Robb took the stairs two at a time when Jon called him and brushed past him without stopping. Following him, they had barely reached the second floor landing when Sansa’s bedroom door burst open and Joffrey stormed out, halfway through putting his shirt back on. Sansa emerged, crying and trying to straighten her shirt, wrinkled and half unbuttoned. Robb lunged and chaos erupted. Sansa, still crying, tried to hold Robb back while Jon held off Joffrey, eighteen, overconfident, and goading Robb. He remembered Robb’s murderous look, Sansa repeating words like ‘fine’ and ‘fault,’ and finally Joffrey erupted, “Nothing even happened, she’s an ice queen!” 

No one had been holding Jon back. Sansa shrieked his name and Joffrey looked up at him from the floor with genuine fear and a split lip, and then Robb was hauling the boy up by his shoulders and throwing him, quite literally, out of the house. Sansa burst into tears and fled to the bathroom, locking the door while Jon’s heart sank to his stomach. It had all happened so fast. 

The girls had abandoned the pizza by the time Jon and Robb finish cleaning up, so they helped themselves to the rest. It was nearly three in the morning. “You should disinfect that before bed.” Robb said, pointing to Jon’s hand. The bruising was light, but there were two small cuts between his knuckles. Jon hadn’t even noticed with everything that had happened. 

Jon found the first aid kit in the downstairs bathroom while Robb showered upstairs. He was grimacing at the sting of rubbing alcohol when there was a knock on the door, even though Jon hadn’t closed it completely. There was only one person in the Stark household who was polite enough to knock on a door that wasn’t even closed. 

“You don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t hurt.” Sansa said, dabbing the cotton pad soaked in rubbing alcohol against his hand. “I know it does.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon’s voice cracked, either because of the sting, the late hour, or just because Sansa had closed the door and the bathroom was suddenly too small. “I’m sorry…about tonight.”

Sansa was quiet for a long moment. “I’ve been thinking that sometimes we have fantasies.” She said slowly. “We kind of know they’re not real, but we want them to be, so we pretend, maybe without really noticing we’re pretending. Then, when someone makes us look, makes us see that what we’ve been looking at isn’t what we’ve been wanting to see…” Sansa trailed off, threw the cotton pad away, and blew gently across Jon’s knuckles to dry what moisture was left. “I’m not mad at you.” She said finally. “I’m mad that the fantasy’s over. I’m mad at myself for believing just because I wanted to believe.”

“You deserve better.” John murmured. 

Sansa spread something Jon didn’t recognize over the cuts and turned around to wash her hands in the sink. With her eyes trained on the running water and the curtain of her auburn hair partially hiding her face, she shrugged, “Maybe that’s the best I can do.”

Jon didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t offer any advice; he’d never had a real girlfriend before. What he was feeling was a tangled mass in his chest he couldn’t translate into words. Everything he could think of saying felt hollow. 

“That’s not true.” He tried anyway. Sansa looked at him and Jon didn’t know what words to use next without unleashing a deluge of everything he’d been thinking all night. “You...you’re everything, and you…you deserve everything.” 

“You have a way with words, you know that?” A sliver of her teasing finally made its way through, like the first signs of healing. Maybe that was what made the lock on Jon’s voice snap. 

“You’re amazing.” He said, voice quiet and rushed. “You’re beautiful and smart and funny and you light up rooms when you come in, and you can be so ruthless but so kind too and I don’t know how you can do both. Your smile, and your laugh, and your voice, and your eyes – he doesn’t deserve any of that, but you deserve everything you want, Sansa, you don’t realize-”

Sansa kissed him, and his stream of words was cut off like a cork in a drain. Her mouth was warm and soft, and though she was gentle but she wasn’t shy. Her still damp hands were in his hair and his body felt like a bowstring drawn tight. His brain became a broken record, one side stuck on “She’s Robb’s sister,” the other side stuck on “Sansa. Sansa. Sansa.” Through a fog, he heard his mouth betray him and murmur her name, maybe warning, maybe begging. 

“Oh god, I’m sorry, Jon. Christ, I’m so stupid.” Her face crumbled and Jon felt his eyes go wide; she misunderstood the raggedness in his voice. He felt numb and too slow from her kiss, and her emotions and conclusions were running too fast for him to keep pace. 

“No. No, no, no, Sansa-” He tried desperately to head off her panic. 

“What’s wrong with me? That was-”

“Sansa, wait, no-”

“Just forget it, please-”

“No, I won’t-”

“Jon-”

“Sansa.”

She was Robb’s sister, Robb who was his best friend and practically his brother, but if she thought he didn’t want her kiss, if she was embarrassed – that was starkly and suddenly more important. It would have been easy to say that they had both been drinking, that Jon was still sobering up, but really, kissing Sansa just seemed like the more straightforward option. 

Jon wasn’t as gentle as she had been, but he had a point to prove: that he wanted this, that he wanted her. Distantly he told himself that he could show her with one kiss and then that could be it, but her mouth opened against his and she melted against his chest.  
Warm in his arms, Sansa gasped against his mouth and Jon thought that death could come for him any time that was convenient: he had lived a full life. To run his hands up her back and feel her move against him, to feel her pull and push as if she could bring him closer to her than he already was, that was accomplishment and experience enough for his life. 

When there was a rap on the door they both jumped. “Jon? You done yet?” Robb’s voice came from the other side. 

“I’ll be up in a minute.” Jon answered after a long pause. Feeling Sansa’s breath against his neck, he was barely conscious of the question. How much time had passed? 

“Alright, I’ll leave a light on.” The stairs creaked as Robb retreated back upstairs. 

“We should…” Sansa trailed off and looked up at him, blue eyes unreadable. Maybe uncertain or embarrassed, maybe fine and just satisfied with a brief make out in the bathroom. Jon had to remind himself to let her out of his arms, to not pull her back in and beg her not to go. 

“Yeah…yeah.” He heard himself say.

She looked at him for a second like she would say something more, but then slipped out the door. He felt suddenly cold where she had pressed against him, and for a moment he wondered if he had imagined the whole thing. Jon retreated back upstairs, clicking the lights off as he did, feeling his way for Robb’s room where his friend was already fast asleep. Jon turned off the bedside lamp and settled down on the second-hand futon, trying to commit to memory kissing Sansa Stark.


	5. Chapter 5

What are you afraid of? Sansa had said. What have you got to lose?

Everything. Jon thought. Nothing. 

Something primal and wolf-like rose in his chest, an adrenaline-fueled need to pull and push, to be pushed and to be pulled. Lightening flashed and for a brief moment Sansa was illuminated. Jon reached out for her in the dark and decided, no, he really wasn’t waiting for anything. An arm around her waist hauled them together and the breath of her gasp hit his lips right as he fit their mouths together. 

Jon had already thought about kissing her every way imaginable and every reaction Sansa could have had. Maybe she could hear the wolf howling inside him to take her and to let her take him because she sank her hands into his hair and commenced in devouring him. Knowing no other way, Jon kissed her back hungrily and desperately. 

Distantly, Jon felt his back hit the couch. His mind was full of the taste of her and the weight of her against his chest and the hot skin of her legs under his hands. He ran blunt nails up her back under her loose sweater to make Sansa’s hands tighten involuntarily in his hair. When she bit at his lip just a fraction too hard he loved it. He’d starved for so long and too much of her all at once was like an overdose. 

“Sansa.” Jon breathed her name in a desperate voice he didn’t recognize. He didn’t have any other words to beg her with. 

Sansa sat up; she understood his request better than he did. The way she straddled him made a friction that was terrible and wonderful, and Jon felt paralyzed by wanting too many things at once. “If you want something,” Sansa lifted her sweater over her head in one fluid motion. It was so very unfair that she could take him to pieces so easily. “You have to ask.”

Jon followed her up with hands anchored on her hips, and set first his lips and then his teeth to the pale skin of her collarbone. He worked his way up; up her neck to her ear with his mouth, and up her ribs to her breasts with his hands. “Please.” He murmured and nipped at her ear. “Please.” Her nails scraped over his scalp and down his neck. “Please.” When the clasp of her bra gave way, Sansa leaned away just enough to slip it off.

“My bedroom…” Sansa started. 

“In a minute.” Jon said with more control than he felt. 

He wanted all of her all at once, in her bedroom or anywhere really, but in that moment her breasts were warm in his hands and he had only to dip his head to kiss over the swell of her chest. Sansa had anchored her hands in his hair and when he felt her fingers tighten he thought for a moment she would pull him up by his hair and insist they move. She didn’t stop him though as he kissed lower and lower. Jon took the space of a breath to nuzzle the valley between her breasts and look up at her, for confirmation and to see what she looked like when her legs were clasped around him. 

Lightening was intermittent, but Jon saw the blush spread across her face. Almost bashfully, she guided him further and his lips brushed against her nipple. Her breasts were small and sensitive and her breath hitched and held and gasped as he licked and kissed her. He moved between her breasts and replaced his mouth with his hand. 

“Jon.” Her voice was thick and frantic and Jon had to agree; giving her pleasure, making her feel good was a pleasure for himself, but there was so much more he wanted. He swung his legs over the side of the couch and stood with her legs locked around his waist and both his hands grasping her ass. Her bedroom was barely across the room, and with Sansa kissing a burning path along his jaw, it was nearly too far. 

Sansa’s bedroom was small and neat, barely large enough to fit her few pieces of furniture. There was a brief detour braced against her bedroom wall when Jon doubted if they would make it to her bed, but they eventually did. Their hands tangled together in the small space between them as Jon fumbled with her jeans and Sansa undid his belt. 

“Come back here.” Sansa laughed breathlessly as Jon kissed down her bare stomach. “I want to touch you.”

“I want to taste you.” Jon replied. Her panties were soft gray cotton speckled with blue flowers. Jon pulled them down her thighs with his teeth.

Her legs trembled around his head, and Jon desperately reminded himself to slow down and to not dive into her as fast as he wanted to. He kissed through her fiery hair and felt her jolt beneath him at the first gentle brush of his lips against her. She was hot and wet and the taste of her completely overwhelmed his other senses. He explored her folds slowly and thoroughly as Sansa dragged her nails over his shoulders and pulled desperate handfuls of his hair. He loved the taste of her, loved being so surrounded by her, and loved the way her body shouted louder than her voice with her legs thrown over his shoulders and her back arching at every contact with her clit. He met the minute thrusts of her hips into his mouth with broad swipes over her, at once too much and not enough. 

He gently pushed her to the edge and watched her waver there for a long time, like a spring ever tightening, a flame growing every hotter. When her whole body stiffened against him, he still ate her up, kissing and mouthing and licking into her until Sansa’s voice reached a new pitch and she dragged him up by his hair. Jon kissed her deeply and messily so she could taste herself still on his tongue. 

“Wait,” His voice was rough and broken, more than he was expecting, when Sansa touched him through his pants, undone and only half on his hips. “I…I don’t have anything. I wasn’t really expecting…”

Sansa laughed into his neck, breathless still. “I have it covered. If you want to.”

“I really do.” 

Sansa reached into her the drawer of her nightstand while Jon stood up to take his pants off fully. His hands were inexplicably steady; it felt like his whole body was shaking for her. She watched him put the condom on and then pulled him back between her legs. 

Jon’s mind whited out when he sank into her. Sansa wrapped his legs fully around his waist, rolled her hips up, smiled at him, and Jon felt himself come completely undone. He handed over all control of himself to her and she showed him how to thrust deep into her, just so fast as to satisfy and just so slow to not satisfy enough, kissing him all over his mouth and neck. He’s entwined in her, but she controlled him from somewhere else, steering him through an ocean whose depths he couldn’t fathom. 

He held off as long as he could, and then longer. A wave rose inside him, steady and insurmountable, and he groped between them until his hand could match the rhythm of their hips against her clit. He felt her orgasm roll through her before the beautiful, broken noise left her throat, and then he was coming fast and hard. Releasing his own pent up orgasm was like stimulus overload. His mind blacked out for a moment, and distantly he realized his knuckles were white where he gripped the sheets. When he collapsed next to her, he was drained. Sansa intertwined herself with him, still trembling in his arms, and Jon stroked her hair until both their breathing slowed. 

Getting out of bed was a mutual effort, both of them pulling each other up and then back down. Sansa went to the bathroom while Jon threw the condom away, and then they shared a glass of water standing naked in her kitchen, giggling and spilling in the dark. Jon fell back into her bed with Sansa on top of him, kissing him, hungry all over again. 

Jon woke up to bright light streaming in through the window and Sansa’s legs intertangled around him, her head on his shoulder. The sky was overcast but clear of rain, making the world gray and bright. He couldn’t tell what time it was, but the streets outside were quiet. It slowly occurred to him that Sansa’s body was limp and relaxed but that her breaths weren’t the shallow consistent rhythm of sleep. When he turned to look at her, there was a sleep crease across her cheek and her hair seemed impossibly tangled. There were goose bumps on her shoulder where it peaked out from under her quilt and her eyes, the remnants of sleep still clustered in their corners, were clear and bright. Jon thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey.” Sansa’s voice was barely a whisper, but in the quiet of the rest of the world still asleep on a cloudy Saturday morning it was loud and clear.

“Have you been awake long?” 

“Not too long.”

“You’re thinking about something.”

“I’m thinking…” Sansa started and stopped. Jon rolled over and slid down under the covers until they were face to face. His heart was suddenly beating very quickly in his chest and rising fast into his throat. “I’m wondering how you feel about last night.”

“I would do it all again in an instant.”

“I was kind of hoping we could do it all again.” Jon only recognized Sansa’s nervous energy when she cut it with amusement, and just in time he realized they might have the same worries. 

“I’d…I’d like to do it all again more nights. To not be just one night.” He stammered out. 

It’s an exhausted metaphor, Jon knows, but the way Sansa’s smile is like sunshine bursting through the grey sky. “I’d like that too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My profuse apologies that this last chapter took so long - I was just as frustrated as you. This was my first time ever writing smut, and everything that everyone says about how hard it is to write sex scenes is absolutely true. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, commenting, kudos-ing, and most of all for being patient with me - you are all beautiful, amazing, lovely people.


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